Why it matters. These filings could set the price and pace for the largest wave of AI public offerings yet, shaping which companies get the funding to lead the industry worldwide.
Background. This story comes from Kyunghyang Shinmun, a major South Korean daily, which is tracking the U.S. AI funding race closely because Korean tech firms, chipmakers like Samsung and SK hynix, and retail investors are heavily exposed to the AI boom. Korean media often frame these developments through the lens of capital flows and chip supply chains, given the country's central role in memory semiconductors. The won figure (121.4 trillion) reflects how the news was localized for Korean readers.
What to watch next. Watch whether OpenAI and SpaceX accelerate their own listings in response, and how public-market investors price the first AI giant to debut.
Anthropic, the U.S. artificial-intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, confidentially filed draft IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 1, moving ahead of its larger rival OpenAI in the race to tap public markets. On the same front, Google parent Alphabet said it would raise roughly $80 billion (about 121.4 trillion Korean won) to fund an aggressive expansion of its AI infrastructure.
The twin moves underscore how the contest to dominate generative AI has become, above all, a contest for capital. As the leading companies pour astronomical sums into models and data centers, the ability to raise money quickly is emerging as the decisive factor.
A race to be first to market
Anthropic, OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX have all been working toward stock listings within the year. Their performance is expected to serve as a real-world test of whether the enormous investment flowing into AI is actually translating into profit.
By filing first, Anthropic appears to be positioning itself to capture capital early in what The New York Times called a “once-in-a-generation” money rush on Wall Street. According to The Wall Street Journal, banks have told both Anthropic and OpenAI that the first company to go public would not only help define the industry but also lock up the vast pools of money seeking AI investments. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman struck a more measured note, telling CNBC, “We will do it at the appropriate time.”
Anthropic was long viewed as a latecomer in AI. But it began gaining momentum last year with large language models prized for their coding ability, including Claude Opus 4.5 and a tool called Claude Cowork. Its valuation has since climbed to an estimated $965 billion, briefly surpassing OpenAI’s $852 billion.
Alphabet bets on infrastructure
Alphabet, meanwhile, is going all-in on building out the physical backbone of AI. The company said demand from businesses and consumers for AI solutions and services now exceeds its ability to supply them, and that the new funds would go toward expanding AI data centers and securing computing power.
Not everyone is convinced the spending spree will pay off evenly. Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, warned that the capital available in public markets is finite. “There is a limit to how much capital can be allocated in the public markets,” he said, adding that investors drawn in simply because Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are well known could see even a fast-growing company disappoint at IPO.
What it signals
For now, the filings and fundraising mark a shift in the AI story from technical breakthroughs to financial endurance. With multiple giants chasing the same investors at the same moment, the winners may be decided less by the best model than by who secures funding first and spends it most wisely.
